Arden pushed forward the huge and heavy chair from the head of the board. "Stand not there before us like the shade of him who was Mortimer Ferne," he cried, his dark face working. "Sit here among us who dearly love you, truest friend and noblest gentleman!--Pour wine for him, one of you!" Ferne made no motion of acquiescence. He stood against the door which had shut behind him and looked from man to man. "Humphrey Carewe--and you, Gilbert--and you, Giles Arden--why are you here upon the _Mere Honour_? The _Cygnet_ is your ship." None answering him, his eyes travelled to others of the company. "You, Darrell, and you, Black Will Cotesworth, were of the _Phoenix_. What do you here?... The water rushes by and the timbers creak and strain. Whither do we go under press of sail?" Before the intensity of his regard the men shrank back appalled. A moment passed then. "My friend, my friend!" cried Nevil, hoarsely, "you have suffered.... Rest until to-morrow." The other looked steadfastly upon him. "Why, 'tis so that I have been through the fires of hell. Certain things were told me there--but I have thought that perhaps they were not true. Tell me the truth." The silence seemed long before with recovered calmness the Admiral spoke. "Take the truth, then, from my lips, and bear it highly. As we had plotted so we did, but that vile toad, that engrained traitor, learning, we know not how, each jot and tittle of our plan and escaping by some secret way, sold us to disaster such as has not been since Fayal in the Azores! For on land we fought to no avail, and by treachery the Spaniards seized the _Cygnet_, slew the men upon her, and fired her powder-room. Dressed in flame she bore down upon, struck, and sunk the _Phoenix_.... Now we are the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_, and we go under press of sail because behind us, whitening the waters that we have left, is the plate-fleet from Cartagena." "Where is Robert Baldry?" asked Ferne. "In the hands of Don Luiz de Guardiola--dead or living we know not. He and a hundred men came not forth from the tunal--stayed behind in the snare the Spaniard had set for them." "Where is Henry Sedley?" "He died in my arms, Mortimer, thrust through by a pike in that bitter fight upon the plain!" Arden made reply. "I was to tell you that he waited for you in Christ His court." "Then will he wait for aye," said the man who leaned so heavily against the door. "Or till Christ beckons in Iscariot." They looked at him, thinking his mind distraught, not wondering that it should be so. He read their thought and smiled, but his eyes that smiled not met Arden's. "Great God!" cried the latter, shrank back against the table and put out a shaking hand.